The Cardinals hopes of making the playoffs were ended last weekend with a disastrous overtime loss to the lowly Panthers. The question now is, how should Arizona approach its final two games of the season. The answer is simple: its time to rest healthy players and tank for the best draft pick you can get.
Sometimes with young teams there is value with playing the final few games as though they are meaningful, just to get valuable reps for your players. Sometimes a coach is working to save his job. Sometimes a team is trying to play spoiler against a rival. But none of these are the case for Arizona. The Cardinals are in possibly the worst place in sports: just bad enough to miss the playoffs, but not nearly bad enough to get a franchise altering draft pick.
There are two main reasons why it would be beneficial for the Cardinals to rest players these final two games. The first one is to avoid any long term injuries to any of their star players. Kyler Murray has already had a history with injuries and now would be in an even more vulnerable spot this weekend as Arizona announced they will be without both of their starting tackles. Additionally, James Conner is dealing with a knee injury already as it is and there is no reason to risk damaging it further in meaningless games. The second reason is to try and better their draft position. Currently the Cardinals would be slotted for the 16th overall pick, but they are 1 of 5 teams at 7-8 on the year and would have a realistic chance of moving up to the 11th overall pick with a pair of losses.
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Spenser Tilus is a sports reporter for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account @Spenser_Tilus
